Meeting of the Parliament 03 December 2025
I am afraid that I have a lot to get through.
It has been revealed that, notwithstanding the people I have just talked about, more than 11,000 people are currently waiting on social care assessments and care-at-home packages. Those figures are a stark reminder of just how badly things have been allowed to drift.
Make no mistake—bad policy choices are driving the crisis. The funding gap that health and social care partnerships face is widening, and the care workforce—the very people who hold the entire system together—is still not properly valued and not paid enough.
Research that my party conducted found that 476 care homes for older people have either collapsed or been sold off since 2015. That includes 56 in Glasgow, 46 in Fife, 43 in Edinburgh, 36 in South Lanarkshire and 24 in the Highlands—that means that the care offer in the Highlands has been decimated. Behind those numbers are uprooted residents and families panicking about where their loved ones will go and how they will travel the distance required to see them. Many of those care homes were forced to close because they simply were no longer financially viable, and some had to close because they could not recruit staff.
The sector is under impossible strain, and care providers feel that they are on their own. It is clear to see why. The SNP wasted four years and £30 million of taxpayers’ money chasing a bureaucratic takeover of social care that it eventually abandoned. That money could have paid the annual salary of 1,200 care workers. It makes people want to cry. That is four lost years, when the gaps in home care were glaring, costs were soaring and homes were closing month after month.
The UK Labour Government has not covered itself in glory, either. It has hammered care providers with a hike in employer national insurance contributions, which has made recruitment and retention all the harder.